Pruning Fruit Trees

Pruning correctly is very important to provide high quality fruit, keeping the tree healthy and making an attractive tree for your garden or orchard.

There are 2 main times of the year for pruning:

Summer –This is mainly for stone fruit such as Plums and Cherries.

Winter – This is the main season to prune Apples and Pears as well as most bush fruits.

At Edibleculture we can prune to create new trained trees in situ, bring back neglected trees into beautiful espaliers and fans. We carry out a variety of restoration pruning. Please contact us below.

We also offer tutorials and work with many horticultural organisations including community orchard groups and allotment societies. Please see the Advice and Education page for more details. We believe training and passing on knowledge to be essential and we run specialist training sessions for gardening societies, horticultural charities and the like.

We can prune individual trees, small orchards or larger scale commercial pruning. Please contact us for a free initial consultation.

Why Prune?

Pruning helps stimulate new growth, controls tree size, and improves the size and quality of the fruit. The first aim of pruning is to remove dead or diseased branches and to create a strong branch structure. Trees with strong branch angles and few overlapping or competing limbs have a better chance of a long, productive life.

Pruning can control the growth rate of a tree. Heavy pruning stimulates lots of new growth but less fruit production. However, pruning too little can result in a crowded tree with poor branching and yields. Most gardeners have the latter problem. By regulating how much you prune, you can keep the tree in optimum health and production.

Its that careful balance that will mean your trees thrive!

Usually within the pruning process we find issues relating to pest and disease of which we can advise on the best low impact solutions. We are very keen to promote effective low impact solutions to pest problems, not unsurprisingly nature normally has a answer when it comes to pest issues, it is no coincidence that the feeding of wild birds young coincides when caterpillars are at there most plentiful.. the addition of birdboxes makes real sense.